Dragan and 'Quese: Big Futures in Phoenix

Well, that’s it. First, I started looking at young players who don’t have sufficient data to back up their future and now I’m looking at one of the worst teams in the league. Not the most hard-hitting news, but it is interesting.

Today, we will be diving into the careers of two young players for the Phoenix Suns, Dragan Bender and Marquese Chriss. The Suns are in an “elite” group of teams in the NBA competing in the Ultimate Tank Race to develop their future in the draft. In order to push them forward in the tank race, the Suns have elected to play their young “project” players more.

Tanking teams are especially interesting in fantasy basketball post all-star break because these teams will start to change up their lineups. Greater opportunities to add rising players arise, and these adds can often shape the end of a manager’s fantasy season. Let’s look at how young Bender and Chriss have molded into starting lineups for the Suns and predict their future trajectory for fantasy ownership.

Dragan and ‘Quese

Let’s start with the basics for the Suns before we dive into player-specific data. The Suns have constantly been in flux with lineups, which can be expected for a team that fired its head coach a few games into the season. They just recently acquired Elfrid Payton in a trade to cement a decent point guard while they had been pulling up G-League players to play point beforehand. The big man rotation has also been in flux with Greg Monroe just being bought out.

The two men we are focusing on today both play power forward and are being used as stretch bigs to align with the current meta of the NBA. Because the lineups have been so inconsistent, it becomes hard to determine a player’s best fit on this Suns team. But the Suns have been bad for long enough that they have built a strong base of young talent. After another early draft this year, I could see them starting to build around Devin Booker, especially if they draft a franchise point guard or center. The Suns are on the road to solidifying their roster and this time is very important for Bender and Chriss. The keys for the starting lineup are Payton, Booker, T.J. Warren and Josh Jackson splitting the small forward, Bender and Chriss, and an undetermined center.

Let’s kick it off with Bender’s stats. Bender plays 78% of his minutes at power forward, and the remaining 22% comes at center. He is in his sophomore season and was the 4^th pick in the draft. His fantasy ranking is 278 over the season, and he still lacks the minutes value to produce in this realm.

His stats show that his shooting percentages are still on the low end. He shoots 5.6 field goals attempts, 0.5 free throws, and 3.7 threes per game. The shooting numbers will come for Bender. The stats also fail to show his improvement as a distributer. He is up to 4 assists per game over the past two weeks when he has averaged 32.2 minutes per game. He has a strong 9.3% assist percentage for his team. It’s been a bit perplexing that his usage rate has dropped from 14.4% last season to 12.2% this season. That can be attributed to the Suns trying out more lineups. But it’s key to note that Bender seems to have more favor in the Suns organization and is playing more minutes as of late.

He currently has a -2.8 box plus minus, so he hasn’t had a strong impact on the team yet. 66.1% of his shots come from 3 point range, and they are mostly coming from catch and shoot attempts, where he has an effective field goal percentage of 55.4. Bender needs to use his size and quickness to shoot close to the basket and his scoring potential and threat will open up. His defense is, also, as to be expected from a young, undisciplined player. He still gets caught jumping, but he’s a more than decent perimeter defender and has the most contested shots on his team [10.3]. Right now, Bender has a lot of potential. I see Bender being a poor man’s Nikola Jokic because of his offensive potential. Give him time to develop first.

Marquese Chriss has been a tease for many expectant fantasy owners. He’s had some monster games. On March 2^nd against Oklahoma, he put up 17/5/1 with 4 threes and 4 blocks in 18 minutes!! His block potential gets people drooling. Take a look at his stats.

Chriss plays 89% of his minutes at power forward and the rest at center. He’s also a sophomore player who was the 8^th pick in his draft class. He ranks 266^th over the season. Usage rate has slipped to 17.1% from 19.7% for similar reasons to Bender. He takes 6.1 field goal attempts, 1.9 free throws, and 2.7 threes per game. He gets to the line enough that his 57% free throw rate is burdensome. 33% of his shots come from 0-3 feet and 43.9 of his shots come from 3-point range. Personally, his three point shooting looks fraudulent to me. He doesn’t shoot very well, but he’s taking a decent number of long range shots as stretch bigs should. But he’s not a deep threat.

Chriss should do better in his archetype as an athletic traditional big. He trumps Bender in block, steal, and rebound percentage at 3.9%, 1.6%, and 13.1% respectively. His defense is decent, but don’t be fooled by block numbers because blocks don’t equate with good defense. Chriss is notorious for committing inane fouls, and that can be a severe limiter to his minutes. He’s a surprisingly strong midrange defender, holding his opponents’ field goal percentage to 37%. Both Chriss and Bender have their rebounding numbers limited by Tyson Chandler, Alex Len, T.J. Warren, and even Josh Jackson. All those players also average more paint touches than Bender and Chriss.

Lineup data shows that Bender has been a detriment on offense. One of their most played lineups includes Tyler Ulis and Tyson Chandler, along with Booker and Warren. With Chriss in this lineup, they are at a 1.1 net rating. With Bender replacing Chriss, the net rating plummets to -19.8 with an abysmal 89.6 offensive rating. Recently, it’s been clear that the Suns organization has increased Bender’s minutes while Chriss sees sub 20-minute games. Over the past 15 games, a lineup of Bender, Booker, Len, Payton, and Warren has a 9.9 net rating. Bender’s offense is improving rapidly with more playing time.

Dragan Bender has the higher potential to be the stretch big of Phoenix’s future, but it may take another season for this to truly materialize. Chriss is limited on this team, and they might be using him wrong. Intuition tells me that if the Suns draft a big this summer, they may try to move on from Chriss. If Chriss ends up on a defensively disciplined team where he can be used as a more traditional big who CAN (doesn’t have to) shoot outside, then the monster stats could more likely appear. Imagine Chriss in an Aaron Gordon role! The time isn’t now for these guys, but it’s on the horizon for Bender and Chriss.

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